To say a person is ‘passionate’ is a cliché these days. Overuse of the word has stripped it of its punch and status. A pity, because when you describe Nicola Girling, principal of Hillsborough School in Auckland, it’s the word that leaps to the top of the list. It springs out in neon lights blinding you with accompanying dosages of enthusiasm and energy because to meet Nicola Girling is to meet a human dynamo. When you question the effervescent principal about her work life balance the word variety emerges. Ah yes variety is synonymous with relaxation in Nicola Girling’s world. The more activities you are engaged in, the more satisfaction you get, and satisfaction is relaxation! Her extra-curricular activities include membership of the Auckland Primary Principals’ Association (APPA) Council since 1997, Emergency Medical Technician (Ambulance Officer) training, gym sessions, swimming four mornings a week and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) training. Then there are of course the myriad nieces and nephews and unrelated children who have just ‘adopted’ her into their lives, and for whom she makes space, time and connections. ‘I believe that when we are fitter we can focus better,’ she says in defence of her rigorous physical programme. ‘It gives me more energy!’ she quips. The NLP training is another important feature of her personal life but it quickly becomes apparent that most things Nicola Girling does privately or publicly feed into her most important focus which is the health and wellbeing of the teachers and students in her school. ‘The skills I have learned through the NLP programme are so hugely useful to share with my staff and with the children,’ she enthuses. ‘The programme is all about developing coaching and mentoring skills, both for oneself and others and questioning is
at the heart of everything,’ she says. ‘It is a technique that I use in leadership growth training in my school both with teachers and children,’ she said. Nicola Girling’s Ambulance Officer training has also paid off, in a most creative way, for her children. ‘I was attending the national rugby league tournament for under-fifteens as part of my training and invited the referees to use our school for a training session of their own,’ she said. ‘The pay-off will be having four of the Junior Warriors Rugby League Team to come and teach the children ‘tag league’’, she beamed. ‘The kids thought that was just awesome!’ she said. I am invited into Nicola’s Office where we settle down with our tea and biscuits. My eyes are drawn to the vibrant, ‘fluid’ painting over-looking us. Shades of green, red and blue meet in
This expressive piece was painted by Nicola Girling herself and tells her own personal story
And here is the Pièce de résistance The biggest mural in the school looking magnificent
Nicola shows us the Māori language teaching resource she has constructed from watching the Māori language programme Toku Reo on Māori television.
Checking out what the children are learning
parallel and swirl as one across the three piece mural in varying thicknesses like a gently rising wave of colour that dips and soars, curls in on itself then soars again. ‘I painted that myself ’, she said. It is my own story of being Principal of Hillsborough Primary and I call it ‘From the Mountain to the Sea’. It is a metaphor for my own personal leadership journey,’ she says proudly, before launching into a description. ‘The painting talks of a principal being the pinnacle of a mountain,’ she says. ‘There are many different paths to the top. Some cross each other, some are broad enough for more than one person, some are narrow, some are steep, some are gentle but they all lead to the top,’ she says. ‘Then you can see that some paths plunge deep and curl in on themselves. That depicts our reflective time which we need for enlightenment,’ she explains. ‘The road ripples and surges and spreads out to reach others. These are our staff, our students and our communities and in turn, they replenish us with their energy and ideas and so the cycle continues,’ she explains. ‘Hillsborough School’, she says, ‘is like an ocean, reflecting light, rising to peaks of achievement and plunging to the depths of reflection and critical thinking. There will always be another mountain to climb and another achievement level to reach. The pathways are many and brilliant colours light the way including those of nature, of people, living things and objects that give life to learning.’ Nicola concludes her story with the proverb: Ko te pai tawhiti, whaia kia tata Ko te pai tata, whakamua kia tina Seek out distant pathways and horizons And cherish those you attain.
The telling of her own story lifts her enthusiasm another notch as she stretches her diminutive frame upwards to proclaim, ‘I get huge pleasure from guiding children to new awareness levels, challenging them and exciting them about learning,’ she says. ‘It’s all about questioning and giving them that love of learning and the capability to become self-directed life-long learners.’ In every classroom I see evidence that this message is filtering through. At the centre of the school’s pedagogy is the development of sound thinking skills. Nurturing ‘The Habits of Mind’ is a common theme. Colourfully displayed in classrooms are illustrated skills for success including listening through ears, minds and feelings; creating and innovating to solve problems; trying new ideas even if they don’t always succeed; being clear; using past knowledge for present problems; being ‘wowed’ by the world and wanting to know more; seeing the funny side; being accurate by checking and checking again; never giving up; using all the senses to get as much information as possible; talking and thinking about your own thinking; making plans and asking meaningful questions to set tricky problems to solve. In another class the teacher uses Tony Ryan’s ‘thinking keys’ approach where children are introduced to ‘key’ concepts that can either enhance or inhibit good thinking. So they have keys called the ‘brainstorming key’, the ‘prediction key’, the ‘what if key’, the ‘combination key’ and so on, which all influence positive thinking. Then they learn about the ‘bar key’ and the ‘brick wall key’ and their ilk which can create barriers to open ended thinking and creativity. ‘We are proud to put thinking skills at the centre of everything we do at Hillsborough,’ says Nicola. ‘We teach thinking skills directly and the whole school adopts a problem solving approach to decision making,’ she says. ‘That means that it is my job to find everyone’s ‘magic button’ not just in the teachers but in the children too,’ she says.
And one little boy tells Miss Girling all he knows about dinosaurs
She moves easily from classroom to classroom where children are eager to show her what they are working on. A group has been set the task of assigning disaster situations to one of two categories. These are natural and unnatural disasters. Immediately Miss Girling shifts to questioning mode and deliberately sets a problem for the group to solve. ‘So, let’s look at the wild fire disaster,’ she says. ‘The wild fire might come from a lightning strike, but what if it was deliberately lit? Which category would it go into then?’ she prompts. ‘It’s all about encouraging the children to think broadly and not be single dimension thinkers,’ she says. ‘That’s where questioning is so important because it makes them think beyond the obvious. Our teachers have all become expert now at prompting the children with questions to extend their thinking,’ she says. Another class is all eyes and ears as the energetic principal leads them in a Māori action song.
One of the many art works depicting the school’s relationship with the environment
‘We are working very hard at our Te Reo and our tikanga across the school,’ she says. To help her teachers she has created a resource of over two hundred lessons and takes her teachers for Te Reo training so that they in turn can teach the children. ‘I did this in my spare time,’ she chuckled, ‘watching the Toku Reo teaching programme on Māori TV.’ Leading the Te reo programme is not the only ‘hands-on’ teaching Nicola Girling does. She also takes the ‘Kiwi-leles’ classes. ‘Any of our children can learn the ukelele,’ she smiles, ‘we provide all the instruments and this is just another option that the kids can take up which doesn’t cost the parents,’ she says. Involving the school in community activities is another important learning experience according to Nicola, and at Hillsborough that includes visiting and entertaining the aged in local residential care and participating in charity work. One charity the school is committed to is ‘Daffodil Day’ to support research into cancer. ‘Every year the children create art for ‘Daffodil Day’. Their daffodil art becomes ‘wallpaper’ for the charity’s sponsoring bank, the ANZ,’ she says. ‘It is our way of showing the community the quality of our children’s art work and secondly that our children have developed a sense of service to their community and the ability to reach out beyond themselves,’ she says. Art is one of Hillsborough school’s great strengths and one of the reasons I have chosen to visit. In fact there has very recently been an exhibition of the children’s art work some of which is displayed in classrooms and corridors. Nicola proudly shows me two vibrantly coloured bowls created and painted by the children for the exhibition. continued on p. 22
adverTorial
Safer journeyS for child paSSengerS New child restraint laws will affect parents and caregivers but may also affect schools transporting children
from 1 november the mandatory use of child restraints in vehicles was extended by two years. This means that all children are now required to be correctly secured in an ‘approved’ restraint until their seventh birthday. Parents and caregivers must continue to secure any children aged seven in an approved child restraint if one is available in the vehicle, and if not, in any child restraint or safety belt that is available. These changes have been made by the government to help reduce preventable deaths and serious injuries to child passengers travelling in vehicles on our roads. Seats and safety belts installed in vehicles are designed and manufactured to most effectively protect an average sized adult in the event of a crash. Children, because they are smaller and have a different body shape to adults, need additional seating equipment to keep them as safe as adults in a car. How will the new rules apply to schools? How the new rules apply to schools will depend on a number of factors such as the type of vehicle and number of seats, and the age of the children being transported. One of the main ways to determine how the new rules apply is if your vehicle is defined as a Passenger Service Vehicle – if so certain exemptions from the new rules may apply. Organisations running a passenger service will have applied for a transport service licence, meaning that they have to meet certain legal standards and requirements to get a licence and operate a passenger service – so if your vehicle falls into this category, you should know. You can find information to help you assess what, if any, changes are required by your school in the Q&A document at www.nzta.govt.nz/childrestraints What are approved child restraints? Approved child restraints are ones that meet approved standards so you can be sure that they have been designed and tested to provide an acceptable level of safety.
Approved child restraints include: infant restraints for young babies (such as baby capsules or rearfacing convertible car seats) ■■ restraints for older babies, toddlers and preschool children (such as convertible or forward-facing car seats) ■■ booster seats for preschool and school-aged children. These position children in the seat so they can safely use the adult safety belt ■■ child safety harnesses (used with or without a booster seat) for preschool and school-aged children. ■■
The most suitable type of child restraint required to keep a child safe will vary depending on the child’s size. Also if you’re transporting multiple children with child restraints, it’s important to find out the best combination for the children and the vehicle. So it’s important to seek expert advice and ideally have the restraints fitted to the vehicle. More information is available at www.nzta.govt.nz/childrestraints including resources that can be shared with parents and caregivers. This includes leaflets in seven languages which can be ordered and posters which can be downloaded. What are the rules from 1 November 2013? Age of child
The law says you must:
until their 7th birthday
correctly secure your child in an approved child restraint
Age of child
The law says you must:
from their 7th to their 8th birthday
correctly secure your child in an approved child restraint if one is available in the vehicle (and if not, in any child restraint or safety belt that is available)
The artistic works the children have collectively created spill seamlessly from the classroom to the corridors and beyond to the school playground. ‘We are so lucky to have a very talented and committed art teacher on our staff,’ says Nicola. ‘Patricia Carlyle leads the art programme across the school, sharing her talents, ideas and techniques with staff and children alike’, she says. Art meets you as you walk in the main entrance to the school in the form of a three dimensional sea scape of fish, rocks, water and swirling koru shaped wave crests. ‘We are so fortunate to have such a great location,’ says Nicola, ‘with the Manukau Harbour visible in one direction and expansive playing fields in the other,’ she says.
‘shadow art’. ‘Patricia took photos of the children at full physical stretch playing a variety of sports, projected the images on to the white boards and the children painted them,’ said Nicola. The cultural diversity of the school is also represented in the outdoor art. The school’s mix is about one third European New Zealanders, one third Indians and one third Asians and in total there are thirty-one different cultures. ‘The pole art tries to incorporate this mix of cultures,’ explains Nicola. The copper images are beaten and some are beaten in Indian Hana style, like the hand for example,’ she says. So far I am feeling overwhelmingly impressed by the standard and quality of the outdoor art work at Hillsborough as we scurry from one gem to another but the best was still to come – the
A proud principal, Nicola Girling
Mosaic work by the children
‘The children designed this seascape to represent our closeness to the harbour and under the careful instruction of artistic whizz, Patricia, put it together,’ she said. Perhaps one of the most defining art works is the giant HPS, (Hillsborough Primary School). Two linked Kauri trees shape the ‘H’, A Rata tree etches out the ‘P’ and the Koru forms the ‘S’. As with much of the art at Hillsborough, the artistic depiction has layers of meaning. The three images also represent the school’s three syndicate teams which are unsurprisingly called Kauri, Rata and Koru. It doesn’t end there. The images are also metaphors. The Kauri portrays strength, the strength to support everyone. The Rata is about growing tall and colourfully, inviting all to be part of the school and the Koru is about protection and new beginnings. Every classroom is numbered, only at Hillsborough the numbers are made in mosaic tiles. ‘This was a whole school project and each room designed their own mosaic pattern for their room number,’ said Nicola. ‘Room one chose to incorporate a star and room four wanted a soccer ball!’ she laughed. ‘It was up to them to decide and then Patricia led them in the technique of actually making the mosaic tiles,’ she said. The mosaic work extends to other areas of the playground where walls are adorned with magnificent mosaic roosters, frogs, turtles, butterflies and more. ‘With Patricia’s guidance and volunteer help from our parent community, the children with special artistic talent made the clay, cut out the tiles and painted them,’ said Nicola. The netball court area was very effectively adorned with
major outdoor mural. ‘I call this our pièce de résistance,’ says Nicola proudly. Individual children’s paintings join up to cover a ten metre stretch of concrete block wall, in a stunning array of bird life, fish, flowers, trees and sea creatures. Even a dolphin and a penguin join the foray of artistic splendour. It is truly a professional work of art. ‘The wonderful thing is,’ says Nicola, ‘that while the school was once plagued by break-ins and graffiti, we get none of that now.’ The beauty of the art work is undeniable and much too precious to defile but another reason for the school’s current lack of unwanted invasion Nicola puts down to the fantastic support of her parent community. ‘Parents want the school to be safe for their children not only during the school hours but also at weekends and after school,’ she says. ‘Our neighbourhood doesn’t have nearby parks so the school grounds are also the weekend playground for the children. This means the parents keep a very close eye on what is going on in the grounds after hours,’ she said. It was a colourful and most pleasurable experience to visit Hillsborough, and become immersed in its people, philosophies, talents and values. In turn it made me think about what I have recently heard international educational experts saying. Their message is that developing critical thinking, questioning and innovation skills in today’s children is priority because these are the key skills that they will require in their future working lives. That being the case, I thought, the children of Hillsborough School will be well and truly prepared for their adult lives.